Post by ferdinand on Nov 9, 2017 1:44:55 GMT

So much of this depends on details of politics that'll be influenced by tech in ways that are hard to forsee even if we knew what the technology was.

For example, if there's heavy taxation on shipments of goods to far-flung regions, we might see smugglers who would be reluctant to call on the Navy for assistance, and a Navy which is more-or-less OK with pirates who keep their heads down acting as an alternative minimum tax on the smugglers without the Navy having to get their hands dirty or expend limited budgets patrolling ignorant and ungrateful backwaters.

It is fortunate that politics, cultures, motivations, and personal quirks driving people - all which influence each other in some sort of order - are far more known than humanity in space as a whole. One can pick a date to split off from and draw up a scenario quite easily and readily. Maybe environmentalism really did kick off in the 70s, maybe the Soviets didn't muck up their manned programs and the US/capitalist world kept on pushing forward, maybe the BIS shoved a man into a V2 or so rocket right after the war for reasons, maybe the Nazis took to space than burning down Europe, maybe Musk or some unknown visionary really did kick off New Space, so on and so on.

Post by dichebach on Nov 9, 2017 17:53:41 GMT

Yeah, 150mil on luna is kind high, IIRC there is only enough water for 60-80 million

It has been estimated that 600 million tons of water ice are within darkened craters near the north pole. 4000 Liter per person, should be enough for a month until you recycle the water.

I never meant to imply I think that 150 million is "not possible." The point is that, conjuring up shoulder launched "mini-nukes" and 10ft tall green-skinned psychopathic killers has been done with MORE back story and explanation than the 150 million Lunanians.

The real difference between "soft" and "hard" science fiction is not IMHO in whether or not any given element in a story "is possible" or "is plausible," but the extent to which the narrative in the work reassures the reader/listener/viewer/user that it IS possible.

Post by dichebach on Nov 9, 2017 18:08:57 GMT

Beginning of WWII, Admiral Karl Dönitz is reputed to have proposed a strategy for the battle of the Atlantic that would involved around 300 submarines. He reckoned this would be sufficient to achieve a very high probability of success in choking supply lanes to the British Isles and countering the British naval assets. When the war broke out in 1939 he had only about 60 subs, less than half of which were ocean going long-range vessels.

Now why do you suppose that they didn't have more subs?

They had a good estimate of how many they would need. It had been written up in Z Plan for some time, but they didn't have them.

I don't think the physics or engineering of how subs and torpedos worked are sufficient to answer this question. To answer that question we need to model larger scale social, economic, industrial sorts of issues. Without modeling those, there can be no "warfare simulation" though there may be "combat simulation."

Post by OMGitsWTF on Nov 9, 2017 18:16:22 GMT

It has been estimated that 600 million tons of water ice are within darkened craters near the north pole. 4000 Liter per person, should be enough for a month until you recycle the water.

I never meant to imply I think that 150 million is "not possible." The point is that, conjuring up shoulder launched "mini-nukes" and 10ft tall green-skinned psychopathic killers has been done with MORE back story and explanation than the 150 million Lunanians.

The real difference between "soft" and "hard" science fiction is not IMHO in whether or not any given element in a story "is possible" or "is plausible," but the extent to which the narrative in the work reassures the reader/listener/viewer/user that it IS possible.

Psychopathic?! Call my dude Frank Horrigan this one more time and you have an vertibird assault team on your ass. What kind of backstory does the Fatman have? It was implemented into Fo:3 As a fun toy. Backstory didn't really exist before Fo:4.

The reason for 150 million Lunarians is simply that earth is destroyed and everyone has to flee, Luna is the nearest place to find shelter on. Maybe they can't actually handle all the refugees? I don't know, this game simply lacks some serious world building. Although with Apophys Electronics™ nothing is impossible to overcome.

Post by ironclad6 on Nov 9, 2017 21:31:15 GMT

This one has been. One of the things I've learned is that the fight's not over until the other guy says it's over and there's no level of firepower disparity that'll dissuade the truly committed fighter. Sooner or later, someone has to go dig'em outta their holes and for the most part the close game hasn't changed much since the discovery of the rock.

Post by Enderminion on Nov 9, 2017 21:42:12 GMT

This one has been. One of the things I've learned is that the fight's not over until the other guy says it's over and there's no level of firepower disparity that'll dissuade the truly committed fighter. Sooner or later, someone has to go dig'em outta their holes and for the most part the close game hasn't changed much since the discovery of the rock.

the metaphor your looking for is a guy with a knife in a foxhole while you can drop a hand grenade in.

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Post by ironclad6 on Nov 9, 2017 21:54:05 GMT

This one has been. One of the things I've learned is that the fight's not over until the other guy says it's over and there's no level of firepower disparity that'll dissuade the truly committed fighter. Sooner or later, someone has to go dig'em outta their holes and for the most part the close game hasn't changed much since the discovery of the rock.

the metaphor your looking for is a guy with a knife in a foxhole while you can drop a hand grenade in.

Post by Hicks on Nov 18, 2017 13:15:54 GMT

So let's circle back.

Firstly, and I cannot stress this enough, space is already militarized and literally everything that is both in orbit and has dV is a goddamn kinetic weapon. Have y'all ever played vanilla Kerbal Space Program? Literally everything is a goddamn missile that can be rammed into anything else.

The part about space piracy using cold gas missiles placed by hydrogen steamers is as crazy as it is crazy expensive. What space pirates actually do is hack anything that is remote controlled and has dV to use as a weapon to ransom vessels in transit with the threat of attack.

And back to infantry; the only infantry I can forsee are actual swashbuckling space pirates. And they don't want the cargo, they want the ship, as undamaged as possible. And that means they are the only group of people who actually want to room clear their target's habitat module. They can't irradiated it with a nuke, because then the ship glows and is worthless; they can't blast it and totally wreck the habitat module, that's where all the computers and controls to operate the vessel are located and an uncontrollable ship is worthless. The cargo on a cargo ship is peanuts compared to the fission reactor, reaction mass, reaction tanks, radiators, and MPD, and will probably be spaced ASAP just to increase accelleration and dV. An actual ship possesses all the resources actually needed to continue to live in space without resupply or access to the precision spare parts needed to repair and replace all the shit that could break down in the deep black. And furthermore, a ship or ship parts are worth far more than their mass in gold to anyone else in space. There's always a ready buyer for ship parts who either dosen't want to or dosen't care to ask if a part is legal, they need reaction mass now, or a reactor now, or a radiator now, or would you rather wait another 3 months for an air scrubber system or whatever from Mars to arrive?

TLDR: anything in space with dV is a weapon, and pirates are hackers who both repurpose orbital craft with dV as missiles to extort money and are literally the only people who would want to have an infantry incursion in your habitat module so they can rid their new spaceship of all this unnecessary meat cluttering it up.